Blazers to move to Seattle: Unlikely

There are plenty of rumours at the moment of the Sonics moving to Oklahoma City – rumours spawned purely by the purchase of the franchise by an ownership team headed by Oklahoma City-based Clay Bennett, on Tuesday .

The latest to come of that is the suggestion that the Blazers could then be shifted to Seattle to fill the void left by the Sonics. This article describes exactly why the chances of that are very slim. Primarily, the fact that the Blazers are locked into a deal with the Rose Garden until 2025, means that the economic-feasibility of a move is extremely small.

There were already rumblings about a move for the Blazers last month, as owner Paul Allen played poor (stating that the team had become TOO unprofitable) and a group including Terry Porter has been attempting to draw together the funds for a buyout to keep the team in Portland.

Even if Microsoft co-founder Allen does remain owner, his Seattle-links are not going to be enough to move the team there. First and foremost, the man is a businessman and I don’t think he will be willing to payout on a Rose Garden lease that lasts a further 18 years, purely to relocate to his hometown. It’s simply not worthwhile – especially after his complaints regarding the financial viability of the team.

Meanwhile, the Blazers are doing their best to distract from this talk and focus on the re-signing of FA centre Joel Przybilla. They even printed t-shirts for the event!